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<front>
<journal-meta>
<journal-id journal-id-type="publisher">ESSDD</journal-id>
<journal-title-group>
<journal-title>Earth System Science Data Discussions</journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="publisher">ESSDD</abbrev-journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="nlm-ta">Earth Syst. Sci. Data Discuss.</abbrev-journal-title>
</journal-title-group>
<issn pub-type="epub">1866-3591</issn>
<publisher><publisher-name></publisher-name>
<publisher-loc>Göttingen, Germany</publisher-loc>
</publisher>
</journal-meta>
<article-meta>
<article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.5194/essd-2026-700</article-id>
<title-group>
<article-title>Gaussian-process fusion of ICESat-2 and SMOS/SMAP data for daily estimates of Arctic sea ice thickness and volume</article-title>
</title-group>
<contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Petty</surname>
<given-names>Alek</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0307-3216</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Cardinale</surname>
<given-names>Christopher</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Tsamados</surname>
<given-names>Michel</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Gregory</surname>
<given-names>William</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8176-1642</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Cabaj</surname>
<given-names>Alex</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1543-3867</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
</contrib-group><aff id="aff1">
<label>1</label>
<addr-line>Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center (ESSIC), University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff2">
<label>2</label>
<addr-line>Department of Earth Sciences, University College London, London, UK</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff3">
<label>3</label>
<addr-line>Environment and Climate Change Canada, Toronto, Canada</addr-line>
</aff>
<pub-date pub-type="epub">
<day>21</day>
<month>09</month>
<year>2026</year>
</pub-date>
<volume>2026</volume>
<fpage>1</fpage>
<lpage>31</lpage>
<permissions>
<copyright-statement>Copyright: &#x000a9; 2026 Alek Petty et al.</copyright-statement>
<copyright-year>2026</copyright-year>
<license license-type="open-access">
<license-p>This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this licence, visit <ext-link ext-link-type="uri"  xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</ext-link></license-p>
</license>
</permissions>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://essd.copernicus.org/preprints/essd-2026-700/">This article is available from https://essd.copernicus.org/preprints/essd-2026-700/</self-uri>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://essd.copernicus.org/preprints/essd-2026-700/essd-2026-700.pdf">The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://essd.copernicus.org/preprints/essd-2026-700/essd-2026-700.pdf</self-uri>
<abstract>
<p>&lt;p class=&quot;p1&quot;&gt;We present IS2SMGPSIT-V1, a full-coverage, pan-Arctic, 25 km &amp;times;25 km sea ice thickness and volume dataset with daily output spanning seven winter growth seasons between 2018 and 2025. The product fuses ICESat-2 laser-altimetry data with SMOS/SMAP L-band radiometry using Gaussian-process (GP) regression implemented with the open-source GPSat package. ICESat-2 provides high-spatial-resolution thickness estimates along defined ground tracks, whereas SMOS and SMAP provide extensive daily coverage of thin ice (&amp;le;0.5 m) thickness. Using each observation&amp;rsquo;s acquisition time and location reduces sampling artifacts associated with existing monthly binning approaches and fills unobserved grid cells, particularly during early-fall freeze-up. Inner-Arctic-Ocean mean thickness seasonal cycles are broadly consistent with the established IS2SITMOGR4 (ICESat-2 Winter Arctic Monthly Gridded Sea Ice Thickness) Version 4 product, while the fused product extends coverage where the monthly product is sparse. Comparisons with upward-looking sonar measurements from the Beaufort Gyre Exploration Project moorings over 2018&amp;ndash;2024 show improved monthly skill relative to IS2SITMOGR4-V4 (&lt;em&gt;r&lt;/em&gt;&lt;span&gt;&lt;sup&gt;2&lt;/sup&gt; &lt;/span&gt;= 0.91 versus 0.83; RMSE = 0.19 versus 0.24 m), primarily through improved representation of thin ice. De-seasonalised comparisons show limited sub-monthly skill, indicating that further development and assessment are needed to improve representation of short-timescale variability. The full spatial coverage supports consistent pan-Arctic volume estimates and analysis of interannual anomalies. Version v0.1 of the monthly NetCDF archive is preserved on Zenodo (&lt;a href=&quot;https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22147361&quot;&gt;https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22147361&lt;/a&gt;; Petty, 2026b). The data are also hosted on Amazon Web Services S3 as monthly NetCDF files, a single Zarr store, and a version-controlled Icechunk repository to enhance accessibility.</p>
</abstract>
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<funding-group>
<award-group id="gs1">
<funding-source>National Aeronautics and Space Administration</funding-source>
<award-id>80NSSC25K7056</award-id>
<award-id>80NSSC23K1253</award-id>
</award-group>
</funding-group>
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